


Twice Captured: Once Learned, Once Burned

by josephina_x



Category: Smallville
Genre: (internal link to explicit dubcon), (sort of), (twice), Bondage, Christmas Presents, Clark Captures Lex, Eggnog, Lofts, M/M, Red Kryptonite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5161244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary / Prompt: Clark has captured an intruder snooping in his loft. Now that he has his prisoner, what should he do with him? (Lex gets caught trying to leave a Christmas present for Clark. [...Twice.])</p><p>Warning: There is a link internally that you can choose to follow, which will allow you to read a chunk of explicit dubcon porn in a separated work. Click with caution. You can read this fic without it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The first shortfic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fruitbat00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitbat00/gifts).



> Title: Twice Captured: Once Learned, Once Burned  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Beta: [tallihensia](http://alatrific.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark+Lex; Clark/Lex  
> Rating: G for part 1; R for non-explicit part 2, NC-17 for explicit part 2  
> Spoilers: various; see notes  
> Word count: 10,300+  
> Summary / Prompt: Clark has captured an intruder snooping in his loft. Now that he has his prisoner, what should he do with him? (Lex gets caught trying to leave a Christmas present for Clark. [...Twice.])  
> Warnings: bondage and dub-con that could be read as non-con and possibly triggering; also: mild h/c  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: A(nother) super-belated pinch-hit for fruitbat00 for Clexmas 2012! (...it's the thought that counts, right? :) So, um, more crack!fic. For fruitbat00. Yes. *coughs*
> 
> The first shortfic is set during Christmastime in season 1 of Smallville, so I guess it could be considered 'old school Clex' ;)
> 
> The second shortfic is sort-of a continuation of the first, and happens a few years later, again at Christmastime, but disregarding most of canon since then, because of reasons. (Shh -- the first one kind of excuses it. You'll see. ;) ...It's, uh, kind of PWP. Except that the _one_ P is... uh... kind of there, but not very good? And the _other_ P is... kind of there, but not very good. And it's dub-con, sort of, except not-so-sort-of, except sort-of. Yes. Er. *hides*
> 
> There is a small bridge-fic between them.
> 
> Originally posted for Clexmas 2013 on LJ [here](http://clexmas.livejournal.com/90082.html) on 2014-01-20 for fruitbat00.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex groaned softly and slowly came to. Why did he feel like he'd just been on the receiving end of a full-body tackle? And why was his vision so dim? ...Oh. There was cloth over his face.

He looked down hazily, blinking and blinking again, and realized he was sitting in a chair. With rope over his arms and... Tied. He was tied to a chair.

Lex sucked in a breath all-at-once as that thought finally registered, because _that_ was _never_ good, and--

He jerked in place hard, coming the rest of the way awake almost immediately. But in his momentary unrestrained flailing against his bonds, the wooden chair that he was tied to wobbled with the motion and slowly started to go over.

_Oh god!_ Lex flinched, squeezed his eyes shut, and braced for the impact... that never came.

He slowly opened his eyes and was face-to-face with... _Clark?!_

Who just so happened to be holding the seat of his chair one-handed like it weighed absolutely nothing.

And righted it just as easily with a thunk against the hard wooden floor.

It was about that point that the adrenaline rush started to clear, and with that clarity came the memory of how Lex had gotten himself into this mess, and why he was up here in the first place.

And what it meant that Clark had used his strength so openly right in front of him.

_Oh, shit,_ Lex thought weakly as he stared up at his young friend. _I am so dead._

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark frowned at the weird ninja-thief sitting in front of him.

In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have reacted the way he had. Meteor freaks did generally come up into his loft to try and kill him, sure. But meteor freaks _didn't_ generally dress up from head-to-toe in a full black bodysuit to do it.

The guy wasn't even wearing a ski-mask; it was more like a head-stocking. Clark couldn't even see his eyes, let alone his mouth.

He'd have thought that the guy must have X-ray vision like him to see through it, except that the material looked slightly thinner at the eyes, or at least different. So whoever this guy was, he had come prepared, mostly. Seriously, the guy had complete skin coverage going on here.

...At least, Clark was pretty sure he was a guy. He was _built_ like a guy, anyway.

Clark frowned and reached for the head-stocking thing to pull it off of him and see who he was dealing with, except that he had to stop and grab the seat of the chair again when the guy nearly toppled himself backwards trying to get away from his hand.

"Okay, fine," Clark relented for the moment, before the guy hurt himself trying to get away when he obviously couldn't. "Well, I guess you don't have super-strength, if you can't get out of that rope," Clark commented as he righted the guy in his chair again. It was kind of a new experience for him. "Y'know, most meteor freaks who try to kill me have extra strength." It was kind of nice, running across one who didn't.

But then the ninja-thief guy pulled in a breath, then froze in place, then started shaking his head repeatedly at him.

Clark blinked, because that was supposed to be mostly a rhetorical question.

"Um," he said, cautiously sitting down on the edge of the couch, close enough to grab the chair again if the guy almost made himself fall over again. "No, you're not a meteor freak? Or no you're not trying to kill me?"

The guy hesitated, then tentatively nodded once, then shook his head repeatedly again.

Clark felt enlightened for a couple seconds, until he realized that it wasn't really clear whether the 'yes'es or 'no's were meant as dis/agreement or in/correction of response.

"Can't you just talk?" Clark asked, and the guy froze up on him again.

Hmmm. That seemed suspicious, especially since he'd taken in a breath earlier like he'd been _about_ to talk before stopping himself. ...So, this was probably somebody he knew? Well enough to recognize their voice?

Well, who the heck would come up into his loft like this? Clark's first thought was Pete, but it couldn't be Pete -- he'd have given up immediately, and this guy was too tall to be Pete, anyway.

...Okay, well, he could X-ray the guy later if he wanted to. It wasn't like he was _going_ anywhere.

"Yes, you're a meteor freak? No, you're not a meteor freak?" Clark tried.

He got a tentative nod again. _Okay._ "Sort-of a meteor freak," Clark confirmed. He bit his lip. "Trying to kill me? Or--" The vehement shaking 'no' response started before he even finished asking. "Okay, okay," Clark said, holding his palms outward, trying to calm the guy down. "Not trying to kill me; I get it already."

Clark sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "What were you trying to steal?" The guy jerked in place, but at least the chair didn't wobble very far this time. "I mean, you're dressed up like some thief or something, " Clark elaborated. "Why else would you be up here?"

The guy sat there for a long moment, then gave him a very exaggerated shrug: shoulders up, then down.

Huh. Weird.

"Were you looking for a place to sleep?" Clark asked, and got a tentative shake. "On the run from anybody?" Another negative shake. "Um, looking for me?" Another tentative shake. "Sort-of looking for me?" A more firm negatory shake.

Clark made a face. This was harder than it looked.

"If I give you a piece of paper, could you maybe just write down--?" he got another firm shake-of-the-head 'no.'

All right, he was kind of getting nowhere here.

Clark situated himself comfortably on the arm of the couch, propped his head on his fist, stared at his captured and silent intruder, and focused carefully.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was more than a little taken aback at this turn of events. People came up into Clark's Fortress to kill him? Or steal from him? And it happened often enough for his best friend to be completely blase about it? What the hell was wrong with this town?

Worse (at least in the short-term...), Lex had no idea how to get himself out of this. He couldn't just let Clark know who he was -- he'd risk losing Clark's friendship. Clark had been lying to him from the start about his strength and Lex had let him, and now he'd just flat-out demonstrated it right in front of him. If Clark realized who he was... well, he would never believe that Lex hadn't come up here for the express purpose of trying to trick him into giving himself away.

Frankly, Lex didn't know how Clark would react to that. The panic being generated from that alone was enough to make Lex break out in a cold sweat.

So he couldn't let Clark see who he was, which meant trying to prevent him from removing his face-mask somehow when Lex couldn't even lift his arms or kick out his legs. (And, frankly, he was kind of lucky that he'd chosen the one he had, or Clark would've probably recognized him from the eyes alone, forget the scar on his upper lip.) He couldn't speak out loud either, to try and persuade Clark to let him go that way, because Clark would recognize his voice -- and he'd almost screwed that up from the first question. He couldn't write anything, because Clark would recognize his handwriting straight-out. And he certainly couldn't outrun Clark, to get away from him without him learning of Lex's identity if he decided to try -- not with the way he was tied up right now.

Frankly, he was kind of screwed, and he probably should've just given up from the get-go. It was bad enough that he'd gotten caught trying to sneak in all ninja-like, but the fact that Clark thought that he'd been meaning to steal something from up here, when all he'd been trying to do was leave a Christmas present behind? Was just insult to injury. (And what would somebody steal from up here, anyway? Clark's books? Or his couch? ...Actually, that _would_ probably be of some concern, now that he thought about it. He had a somewhat-decent taste in reading material, after all. And a ~~nice~~ very comfortable couch.)

Well, at least if he managed to get out of here in one piece, maybe Clark might still end up accidentally accepting the gift? He'd not put a card or a label on it for a reason, hoping that if he left it here out in the open, without a return-to-sender, that Clark would just _have_ to accept it. He'd even calculated out the expense carefully, trying to keep it within what he had hoped to be a normal family's budget, even, so that he wouldn't get caught out that way, either.

Except that now he'd gotten caught in an entirely different way, instead, and this hadn't been a part of his calculations at all.

He glanced downwards and away, then back up again quickly, trying not to give away that he'd been trying to look for something, or give away his sudden dismay. In the tussle earlier, when Clark had jumped him, the present must've rolled away under one of the pieces of furniture. Clark might never even _see_ it.

...Though whatever he was seeing right now was somewhat unclear. For some reason, Clark was giving him a thousand-yard stare from his perch on the side of the couch.

Lex held up under it for a bit, and watched Clark finally blink at him, then shake himself slightly.

And frown slightly.

And glance away.

And frown some more.

And then say, "Um."

None of which was all that helpful, really, because Lex couldn't exactly hold up his end of the conversation right now.

And then Clark said, "So, um, why were you up here again?"

...That wasn't exactly a yes or no question, so Lex felt justified in continuing to just sit where he was tied down without making any attempt at a meaningful response.

Clark turned back to him, then quickly looked down at his hands in his lap. He rubbed them together, almost absently.

"I'm not sure if I can just let you go like that," Clark said, as if he was continuing some train of thought that Lex hadn't quite heard. "If I don't even know who you are."

Lex sat in place and didn't stir. Despite the _but if I did..._ that dangled in the air between them.

"Except that you're sort-of a meteor freak," Clark continued after awhile, still looking down at his hands, and why was he beginning to sound like he was trying to talk himself into something? "And nobody... kind of talks about Wall of Weird stuff when they're kind of... part of it, right?"

Lex blinked.

"Um, do you know what I'm talking about?" Clark asked, glancing up at him. His eyes moved back-and-forth, as if he was trying to search Lex's face... except that he couldn't see his face.

Lex swallowed, then nodded carefully, just the once, because he thought he just might.

"And, um, if you don't ever tell anybody that you came up here, or anything, then it can be like it never happened?" he said almost tentatively.

Lex blinked at Clark again.

_Oh my god, Clark, are you going to just let me go?!_ he thought with no small alarm. because, yes, he'd be getting out of here without a full-blown confrontation, which just would not and could not end well, but how could Clark just trust somebody who had seen him do... what he had _done_... who he had every right to be suspicious of... when he didn't even _know--?!?_

\--and Lex jerked back in the chair, away from him in shock, because _Clark was already up and untying the ropes from his arms when he hadn't even responded yet._

"It's okay," Clark said soothingly ( _...soothingly?!_ ), stopping what he was doing for a moment, long enough for Lex to catch his breath, before resuming his work in finishing freeing Lex's arms, and then crouching down to work on getting his legs free.

Soon enough, Lex was untied, and Clark had stepped back away from him.

Lex slowly and warily got up from the chair, trying not to wince or wobble as he did so.

Clark just watched him, standing neutrally where he was.

Lex took a hesitant step sideways, away from him.

Clark didn't make any move too follow him. Not with anything but his eyes.

Lex ran.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex bolted down the loft staircase, across the barn floor, out the sliding doors, and raced for the edge of the property line.

He didn't even bother to look over his shoulder until he hit the treeline, and when he finally did he didn't see Clark anywhere at all.

He didn't stop running until he had a good chunk of forest in-between him and the open expanse of the Kent property, when he was finally at least a good twenty trees back.

And then he skidded to a stop and pulled himself behind a tree.

He crouched down and hid in the dark, dark woods, and tried desperately to catch his breath, as his heart pounded away erratically in his chest, because _Clark had just let him go?!?!_

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,_ he thought frantically, not even feeling safe enough to breathe out the curses out loud under his breath. Not yet.

He shoved the side of his hand into his mouth and bit down to stifle a hysterical laugh... or a scream.

_Jesus fucking Christ, Clark -- what in the hell were you thinking!?!?_

After who knew how long (because Lex surely didn't), Lex just got up and started walking shakily away, because he wasn't calming down any just staying there where he had been.

He hadn't taken his car to the farm -- he'd been trying to go for full-stealth, there -- so it was a long, long walk through the woods and cutting across someone else's farm property, getting back to where he'd parked.

Unfortunately, he wasn't feeling any less shaky by the end of it. If anything, his shaking was even worse.

He still wasn't sure exactly how he managed to drive himself back to the mansion after, but he did at least remember to pull off the full-mask and shrug on a long, obscuring winter coat before he was around other people again.

It wouldn't do to arrive and get noticed by his staff, and then have rumors circulating around the town that Clark could hear. Not after all _that._

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex decided that his retry, his redo at another Christmas present for Clark, was dismantling The Room and destroying its contents completely. And stopping looking into things that now he already knew. And never, ever telling Clark or anyone else about it, ever.

Because the least he could do after what had happened that night was to keep a promise to Clark that he'd never really made.

He'd do anything for his friends. _Anything._

And he only had the one.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. The bridge-fic

~*~*~*~*~*~

The first week after that, Lex was on pins and needles.

And Clark didn't come with the usual Sunday delivery.

Lex told himself that it was 'because New Year's' the same way he'd told himself that Clark's absence the previous week was 'because Christmas' and did _not_ bite his nails down to the quick with worry. That was a disgusting habit that he did not do.

He surreptitiously stole one of the broadswords from a suit of armor in the hallway and swung it around for awhile where nobody was looking, instead. On a couple occasions.

...Not that he destroyed any of his groundskeeper's sculpted topiaries over the course of that week in the process. Clearly that wasn't him, oh no. Clearly that must have been the deer getting at them and eating them all up to pieces. _Clearly_. Through the snow. And leaving only small little bits of stuff all around the plant-shrubbery behind them. Without leaving any visible tracks, because of the wind shifting the snow around. Besides, those things grew back just fine, didn't they? They'd probably needed some trimming, anyway.

...There _were_ deer in Kansas, right?

Clark showed up the following Sunday with a box of winter produce: potatoes and cabbages, carrots, turnips, parsnips, onions, and winter squash.

Lex may or may not have been hanging around the hallway outside the kitchen area when he showed up, because Cook was making cookies and he wanted some. Not because he wanted any parsnips. That would be silly.

"So, I hear you've been terrorizing your gardener," Clark said, apropos of nothing.

"I don't know where you hear these rumors," Lex said breezily, while mentally cursing under his breath at tattletale Cooks, as he took a tray full of cookies and milk from his Cook.

A frustrated, harried-looking Cook, who gave him a very dark look as she passed it over into his arms with almost a thump, and continued to look him in the eye, dead-on. And crossed her arms at him.

Lex decidedly did not hunch his shoulders at that in the slightest.

He took a _very_ straight-backed posture and turned 180 degrees, making for the hallway door, instead.

"We need to eat these cookies in the library, though," he informed Clark.

"Sorry," he heard Clark say behind him, and Lex stopped in place and almost panicked, but then he forced himself to take a breath as Clark quickly turned and followed after him.

"You really shouldn't terrorize Cook, either," Clark admonished him.

"I wasn't!" Lex protested as he led Clark out the door down the hallway.

"So you _weren't_ hovering around in the hallway waiting for cookies, ready to pounce?"

"No!" Lex said, shocked, stopping in place and turning back to face Clark and--

Clark was looking at him sideways and had a small smile going.

Oh. _Teasing, right._

Clark walked past him and held the door to the library open for him.

Lex huffed out a breath of slight protest -- he didn't exactly need the help, the doors swung open both ways -- and walked straight in.

Well, so far so good. Clark had followed him in, so he probably must've not known that it was Lex who had been in the barn that night. Otherwise, Clark would have left, or not been in such a good mood. Or it probably would have been Mr. Kent delivering the goods, instead. Or gotten a call from Mrs. Kent stating that he had all his order cancelled from there on in, without explanation. Or maybe with an explanation, and several threats.

"So, I liked the watch," Clark said, still apropos of nothing. "Where did you find it?"

Lex almost dropped the tray.

"Watch?" Lex said. "What watch?"

Clark was giving him a sidelong look again, this time without the smile.

"The one I got for Christmas?" Clark said. It wasn't _quite_ a question.

"Oh," Lex said, mind going frantically, "Why did you think it was from me?" he asked, sounding calm. "Did it have my name in the card?"

Clark got a slight frown. "There wasn't any card."

"Oh. The tag, then?" Lex asked, knowing full well that he hadn't put any sort of identification on the box that he'd _thought_ had gotten irretrievably lost under a desk or some other furniture in the loft when he'd gotten himself caught in the act and nabbed.

"There wasn't a tag either..." Clark said slowly, taking a step forward and looking down at Lex very, very carefully.

_Don't sweat, don't sweat,_ Lex told himself, looking up at Clark, trying to look innocent. (Whatever that was.)

If not for the mistake he'd made in finding out about Clark's powers, Lex might've considered fessing up and telling Clark that he'd found it in a pawnshop and thought it had looked nice, and bought it thinking that Clark might have liked it. It should have been okay; it had been marked down pretty cheaply, despite the quality. ...Frankly, it had been almost a steal -- but it had been in the right price range, at a place where Clark or any of his friends could have shopped, and within a reasonable budget for a small-town teenager giving gifts. So it should've been okay, right?

"Actually, now that I think about it, it didn't have my name on it," Clark said, consideringly, and Lex found himself unexpectedly confronted with the sudden worry that Clark might not keep his gift, after all.

"--Maybe Santa Claus brought it," Lex said quickly, and the warning bells went off in Lex's head a bit too late.

_Oops,_ thought Lex, as he watched Clark's eyebrows go up, and then down again.

He watched Clark open his mouth, and Lex braced for the inevitable, terse, _I don't think Santa Claus usually wears an all-black bodysuit, Lex,_ reply from Clark.

...except Clark paused, instead. And closed his mouth again.

And eyed Lex a bit more.

Lex decided that discretion was _definitely_ the better part of valor and set the tray down on the coffee table. Quickly.

"Cookie?" he asked, picking one up and holding it out to Clark at armslength.

Clark continued to eye Lex for a little while longer.

Then he looked at the cookie.

"...Okay," Clark said, taking the cookie from him.

_When in doubt, feed the Clark,_ Lex thought. Because, as far as good distractions went... _Works every time._

Lex bent over and breathed a huge sigh of relief as he picked up a glass of milk for himself. Then he grabbed the second one, too, straightened and offered the other one to Clark. Then he sat down.

He watched Clark sit down on the other couch _opposite_ from him -- not exactly a great sign -- and his thoughts got caught up in a tangle, wondering if Clark did or didn't know it had been him, and what he would do if he did, and not exactly sure if he was more relieved that he seemed to have convinced Clark otherwise, or dreading the inevitable fallout that would happen when Lex finally tripped up... because, eventually, he would. He knew he would.

"Oh, hey," Clark said, interrupting his thoughts, and Lex looked up to see Clark leaning forward and digging around in a back pocket. He pulled a small something out and tossed it to Lex, who deftly caught it one-handed.

Lex looked down at it with a slight frown. It was a small, wrapped present. With a bow. A wrapped-up box with a bow.

A very familiarly-shaped box-shaped box.

_Er..._

Lex carefully did not drop the familiar-looking box-shaped present.

He slowly set his glass of milk back down on the table between them, instead.

"What is this?" Lex asked Clark.

"A present," said Clark, before leaning back and taking a bite out of his cookie.

Lex looked over the box-shaped present.

"There's no name on it," Lex noted out loud.

"Must be from the same Santa," Clark said blithely.

Lex decidedly did not wince. He sat where he was and thought about whether it was a really good idea to say to Clark, 'But I didn't get you anything,' or a really, really bad one.

Lex settled for not saying anything at all and just working at the wrapping paper, instead.

...Yes, it was the same box he'd used for Clark's present.

Lex bit his lip absently and cracked open the box.

And blinked at the contents.

He slowly pulled out a small slip of paper.

It was a 'get out of jail free' card, in heavy card stock. It looked a little like a Monoply game card piece, except it was clearly handmade, and...

He flipped it over, then back again -- there was nothing on the back -- and read the front.

He felt himself still.

"...Entitled to one question answered, with no repercussions if caught?" Lex read off slowly, evenly, and very, very carefully, barely daring to breathe.

"Yup," said Clark, sounding completely unconcerned.

Lex slowly looked up at Clark.

Clark was looking down at his cookie. Lex watched Clark take another bite of his cookie, finishing it off, and then reach for another one and pluck it off of the plate.

Lex looked back down at the card he was holding.

"Do you think I need one of these?" Lex asked Clark very, very lightly, looking up at Clark again.

"Maybe," said Clark.

He didn't look up at Lex once.

Lex moved his eyes back down to the card he was holding.

He swallowed once.

He thought long and hard about this.

And then he slid the card back into the box and gently closed it, as a professional might treat a primed piece of explosive ordinance that they themselves did not manufacture -- with a very wary respect, and great caution. Outwardly, his expression was perfectly calm.

But his hand was shaking as he did it.

...Good thing it wasn't _that_ kind of bomb.

He carefully, slowly leaned forward and set the box down on the table in front of them, between them. He pushed it forward until it was in the exact center of the table, equidistant from them both. He leaned back again.

Clark looked up.

He glanced down at the box, then looked back up at Lex again.

They stared across the table at each other for a long moment.

And then Clark dropped his gaze, slid forward on the couch, and set down his glass of milk.

He leaned in, and he scooped up the box.

He shoved it back into his pocket.

Lex watched this and swallowed, hard.

Clark got up.

Lex watched him do it. Clark's face was unreadable, almost expressionless.

Clark walked around the side of the table and dropped down onto the couch next to Lex.

"So," Clark said abruptly, flopping back into the cushions with a smile like nothing was wrong, "I know how you terrorized Cook, but what the heck did you do to those bushes out back that's got the gardener pulling out his hair?"

Lex glanced away and felt himself blush.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Clark," Lex told him, but then he couldn't help glancing back at Clark sideways.

"Uh huh," said Clark, eyeing him with a dubious, almost-conspiratorial look, before he took another chomp out of his second cookie and chewed away, watching Lex.

"...I'm pretty sure that it was the deer?" Lex tried, glancing away again.

Clark paused for a moment. "The deer?" he asked.

"Yes," said Lex, picking his glass of milk back up and taking a sip from it.

Clark watched him, then started to smile.

"Yeesh," said Clark, shaking his head. "Those darn deer!"

"Uh huh," Lex said, and he was smiling helplessly...

...as he lied to Clark's face about it...

"With their really sharp teeth, and their shapeshifting feet into looking like men's shoes ways," Clark added on, nodding like he was agreeing with Lex and getting into it, as he finished off his second cookie.

...in no small part because Clark was perfectly happy to go along with it.

"Stupid meteor-freak deer," Clark continued with a sigh, crossing his arms and shaking his head again.

"Stupid meteor-freak deer," Lex agreed, ruefully, "always running off and getting into trouble."

Clark let out a soft laugh, and Lex blushed again as he realized what he'd just said.

But Clark just shrugged at him. "Could be worse," Clark told him with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Lex ducked his head for a moment. "Yes," he said softly.

But as Lex sat there next to Clark, staring down at his milk, he decided that--

Screw this, he was _done_ with being embarrassed!!

He glanced back over at Clark, and tilted his chin up almost rebelliously, eyes flashing.

"Yes," Lex said more firmly, meeting Clark's eyes, "It could be worse." He took a breath. "But it won't be."

Clark looked a little startled for a second, then tilted his head at him, considering.

"--Right, _exactly!_ " Clark said happily, and he grinned.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. The second shortfic

~*~*~*~*~*~

_**Five years later...** _

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex groaned softly and slowly came to. Why did he feel like he'd just been on the receiving end of a full-body tackle? His head was spinning, and he ached all over. And why was his vision so dim? ...Was there something across his face? He opened his mouth slightly to suck in a breath, and met no resistance. Nothing blocking the airways to his nose or mouth. ...No, it was just across his eyes. And he couldn't see. He also felt oddly constrained, and this situation felt oddly familiar somehow...

_Oh,_ Lex thought hazily. _Not again._

Well-informed from past experience in other instances of kidnapping, he tried not to move too much or too swiftly before he'd gotten back his mental bearings and taken full stock of the situation.

He shook his head, and tried unsuccessfully to shove the sides of the blindfold up by rubbing the side of his head against his shoulder several times, on one side and then the other, all with no luck. Unfortunately, the blindfold he had on him seemed to be made of a sheer material, and was tied on too tightly for that to work.

Lex hissed out a breath of consternation and then moved on to gently tugging and twisting his arms and legs carefully, testing his bonds to see if he might be able to try to get out on his own. No luck there, either. It felt like he had been tied down with a similar slick material, but that slickness wasn't working for him -- it had been wrapped around him in wide strips and the pressure was enough that it wasn't cutting off his circulation, but was preventing him from getting any real traction on the stuff.

And, if past experience dictated his relative position correctly, he was tied to a chair: to the chair arms at the wrists and elbows, to the seat across his thighs, and to the chair legs around his calves. His torso hadn't been bound to the back of the chair, and his elbows weren't tied right up by his sides, though, so he could bend his forward somewhat, at least. From trying it, he found he could manage something close to a twenty- or thirty-degree angle, if he was gauging it right, but that was it. The chair didn't rock from the motion in the least, either, so it was either very heavy, or being held down in some manner. That would make things more difficult. So he wasn't exactly going anywhere, anytime soon. Not without outside help, at any rate.

Lex concentrated on breathing in and out, and wondered if he should try calling out for help.

Instead, he settled for a quiet, "...hello? Is anybody th--"

And that was as far as he got, before he was blinking and squinting with watering eyes at the light that now assaulted his vision, as the blindfold was removed.

He slowly opened his eyes and was face-to-face with... _Clark?!_

_Oh. **Clark.**_ Lex smiled in relief. _Thank goodness--_

And Clark smiled a rather toothy and wild and wide grin at him in return.

_Wh--??_ Then Lex sucked in a breath all-at-once as the look of him finally registered, because _that_ was _never_ good, and--

He jerked in place hard, coming the rest of the way awake almost immediately. But in his momentary unrestrained flailing against his bonds, the hard metal chair that he was tied to didn't move an inch -- probably because it was bolted down to the floor.

Clark's face was suddenly right in front of his, almost nose-to-nose.

_Oh god!_ Lex flinched, squeezed his eyes shut, and braced himself for an impact... that never came.

It was about that point that the adrenaline rush started to clear, and with that clarity came the memory of how Lex had gotten himself into this mess, and why he was up here in the first place.

And what it meant that Clark had tied him up like this with his eyes looking _that_ particular shade of gleaming red.

_Oh, shit,_ Lex thought weakly as he reopened his eyes and stared up at his young friend. _I am so dead._

He swallowed hard.

Clark's grin got just that little bit wider, and his eyelids drooped slightly in what looked like pure, pleased and pleasant pleasure at Lex's nervous reaction. And if he hadn't known he was in trouble before...

"Oh, fuck me," Lex breathed out, eyes widening.

Clark _chuckled_ at him.

And then he said, "Oh, I intend to."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark was very glad he had a photographic memory, because the look on Lex's face was just priceless. He was going to call that one his 'eep!' face.

"Clark," Lex said nervously. "Clark, you uh, you know you're on _red-K right now, ri **ght???**_ " he said, almost babbling, and his voice started rising into the higher registers, as Clark languidly slid down onto the chair seat, knees framing either side of him. Then, when Clark settled down just a little lower in place, he slammed backwards against the chair frame, shaking slightly. It was amusing.

"Mmm, yeah? Red-K?" Clark said, taking about two seconds to think about it. "Makes sense."

"Do-- do you know when you were exposed to it?" Lex said, his eyes looking a little wide as he went off, grasping at information to try and calm himself down. Like that ever really worked. It was really so cute when he did that.

Clark decided to humor him.

"Oh, maybe it was in the spice packet from that new age shop," he contributed upon reflection.

"The... the one with the storekeeper who got Lois messed up on that Red lipstick on-- on _Valentine's Day?_ " Lex all but squeaked, as Clark slid forward on the chair just a little bit closer.

"Yup, that's the one," he confirmed, lightly dropping his hands onto Lex's shoulders, then smoothing them down Lex's sides to stop at Lex's waist. "I put it in the egg nog," he confided, then leaned forward and whispered into Lex's ear, " _And then I drank it._ "

He felt Lex's body tremble under his hands.

"R-right. Right. Okay," Lex said, then swallowed hard. "Right, so. That's... we can... yes, that's just, we just need a-- just a _little_ green-K and... and then--"

Really, very cute how Lex was still focusing on how to _fix_ things; it was so very _him_.

But Clark had his own ideas about how to fix things, and hey, Lex was even the one who had prompted the idea, so it wasn't like he should be able to complain about it, either.

So while Lex was both preoccupied and distracted with glancing around the room, trying to determine the location of the nearest box of green meteor rock and babbling on and on about how everything would be all right and all that -- and Clark was secretly agreeing with him, only for a very different reason -- Clark reached a hand around behind him and snagged his half-full glass of eggnog.

He took in a mouthful, let the glass dangle from his hand off to the side, and used his free hand to carefully but firmly grasp Lex's chin and pull it upward towards him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex's mind was fully-engrossed with the red-K Clark problem.

\--In part. His mind was fully-engrossed with the red-K Clark problem _in part_.

His body, on the other hand, was causing him some trouble, what with all the nervous shivering he was having to expend a significant level of mental self-control to suppress. Because he really, really had to suppress it. Because Clark -- or Kal rather -- would take his reaction the wrong way, oh-so- _very_ -much the wrong way. To make matters worse, the feeling of the heat of Clark's body due to such close-proximity, once it began to register, was making it even harder for Lex to focus.

Honestly, Lex's body was an idiot. It kept telling him, 'oh, everything's all right,' when _NO, THINGS WERE VERY NOT ALL RIGHT!!_

Clark was on red-K. Clark was not thinking clearly. So Lex had to think clearly for him.

...Except Lex was having a hard time thinking clearly himself, what with Clark kneeling right over his lap like he was.

And talking about fucking him.

\-- _With_ him. Fucking _with_ him. He had to have heard that wrong earlier. Misunderstood it, somehow. Simple Freudian slip, really. Honestly, Lex didn't know what was going on with his brain sometimes, these days. ~~...Actually, he did, but--~~

Clark wasn't thinking clearly, and Lex had to figure out how to keep Clark from making any mistakes that he might regret later, because they were friends, and Lex would do anything for his friends, even be very highly responsible and _not_ suggest anything untoward to do while Clark was in a completely unrestrained and unrestrainable state like he was right now. Because Clark would probably go on and do it. And that would be wrong.

No, Lex didn't take advantage of his friends, not ever. He only had the one. He didn't want to lose him.

Yes, Lex's mind was fully-engrossed with trying to figure out a way to persuade Clark -- and possibly Kal -- into going off and retrieving the lead box from the drawer in the side table a few feet away.

And this was unfortunate.

This was unfortunate because, consciously, he wasn't really seeing the bigger picture problem of Clark being _on_ the red-K. And, while Lex's mind was fully-engrossed with the problem of getting Clark off of the red-K, his body automatically did not tense or flinch at the hand on his chin. Thus, Lex wasn't paying attention to Clark-Kal-El anything like he should have, so Lex wasn't prepared at all for what happened next.

"Cl-Clark? W-what are you--MMPH!" And while he was cut off as Clark's lips came down on his, his eyes going wide and startled, he was also shocked enough that his jaw dropped slightly. Accidentally. Because his mind had been paying attention to all the wrong things.

And, in retrospect, that had been completely the wrong reaction to let himself take.

Because Clark's next move was to snake his tongue directly into Lex's mouth, which, with his jaw already loose, Lex was unable to offer any real resistance to, for various and sundry reasons, and the next thing Lex knew...

Lex shivered, and his shoulders dropped... until he felt a jolt and tensed again, because suddenly his mouth was near-full of something mostly-sweet and slightly-bitter, an oddly familiar and not-so-horrible taste, and when Clark pulled away--

\--Lex started to open his mouth automatically _because_ of the startling amount of the unexpected additional liquid, but Clark's grasp shifted, suddenly tilting his chin up and far, far back with a single thumb.

The backwards tilt of his head, of course, made a significant portion of the liquid hit and fill the back of his throat completely.

"Gkk-lk!" Lex spasmed in place under his bonds, unable to breathe, and he struggled to try and move his head down, tried to open his mouth to expel the liquid, but he couldn't. The thumb that was holding his head back was also keeping his jaw closed, with the way the back of his skull was being braced against the top of the chair. Lex wasn't going anywhere.

And then Clark stroked the rest of his fingers down the front of Lex's throat.

The downwards stroking only exacerbated the situation, being a leading motion. But at the time, in the situation he was in, he already wasn't thinking very clearly, if at all. So it was really a completely involuntary reaction that had Lex quivering in place and swallowing reflexively to clear his throat. If he had been thinking clearly, he should have forced the liquid out through his teeth, no matter how much of a mess it would have made leaking out the sides of his mouth.

...In fact, it took two hard swallows to get it down, which he almost choked on as he did it, before Clark finally let go of him.

Lex gasped and coughed heavily once, as his head dropped back down to a more usual incline.

It was about this point that, through slightly-watering eyes, Lex finally noticed the glass of yellow-tinted liquid that Clark was holding in his other hand.

Oh. Uh.

Lex's eyes widened as he realized...

_Oh--_

"Nnn-k." Lex gave a not so very voluntary shudder as he felt the warm liquid hit his stomach, and the reaction wasn't just due to the copious amount of alcohol in the drink.

And then he hissed in a breath through clenched teeth and violently twisted in place, as he could just about **feel** when the stuff hit his circulatory system; he arched his back, _squirming_. He felt his eyes roll back in his head, and he jerked and jerked in place again and again against his bonds as he felt the foreign matter shoot down and burn outwards with every heartbeat, through and through him, to spread down and out and up throughout his veins to his extremities. Left him shuddering again as in its wake came and went a _very_ pleasant thrumming warmth.

He breathed out shakily as he felt the tension in him drop, and drop, and drop, like falling down a staircase, hitting every jarring step... or at least until he realized that it was only the _nervous_ tension in him that was going through this... at which point it just suddenly peeled off of him in a continuous cascade and finally all... fell... away.

"Aa--aaaah," Lex breathed in, shivering at the oh-so-pleasant sensation of _loss_ , and his neck fell back, and his eyes went a little wide...

...and locked with Clark's own...

...and he suddenly felt a very different sort of shock hit.

It was like feeling something blossom up inside him, a shivery-fluttery warmth, and it filled his chest and then the rest of him and all of his thoughts with a lovely, slightly-red haze.

And it was all focused around Clark.

" _Oh,_ " he breathed out softly, feeling himself begin to flush, because Clark was just _beautiful_ , glorious and _sitting_ there, and, why, he was there _all for him_.

Lex leaned forward almost involuntarily, following a deep internal pull... up until he came to a sudden and startling _halt._ Because of the cloth ties that were still there, around him, and restraining him.

And then he whined in frustration, his fingers twitching ineffectually without any real direction. Because Clark was _right there_ , kneeling _right_ above him, not an inch away from his lap, and Lex _couldn't touch him!_

Clark smirked down at him, looking amused.

Oh, and it was such a _good look_ on him, promising so _very_ very much, and Lex felt the force of it go straight to his cock.

Clark chuckled, and it did things to his insides.

"Feel good?" he was asked.

"Y-yes," Lex breathed out, and, frankly, if this was what the Red felt like to Clark, it was a wonder that he wasn't just on it _all the time_.

"Mm," said Clark. "I think we can do better."

And Lex had to sit there and _watch_ , restrained and incapable of moving any closer, as Clark took another large swallow of the tainted, spiced and drugged egg nog.

Lex bit down on his lower lip and shivered, watching the motion of Clark's Adam's apple move up, then down again.

Clark finished the one, and then took another, finishing off the glass and setting it down and off to the side.

And then he bent down over Lex from above and placed his lips to Lex's once more.

Lex felt a heady warmth shoot straight through him from the point of contact. He easily, readily opened up his lips to Clark's questing tongue.

And he greedily drank down out of Clark's mouth every last drop of the second mouthful of eggnog that Clark had saw fit to give him.

He almost choked on the second mouthful too, before Clark pulled away, but he knew what Clark wanted him to do this time, and he carefully swallowed it all down, down, down.

And all the while he watched Clark lick his lips and stare down at him in interest.

"Hh-h," he shivered. "Hh-h-hh," arching his back again, "aa-a- _aaah!_ " and shuddering under Clark in pure, deepening pleasure, when the rest of it finally hit.

He was shivering, shivering, shivering now, and not because he was feeling cold. He wasn't _cold_. Not one bit.

Head tilted back, throat exposed, breathing heavily, and already feeling thoroughly wrecked, he gazed up at Clark and felt the rest of the world slowly disappear around him in a red, sparkling haze. Not that the world mattered all that much, anyway. It was all warm, rolling red clouds and faint outlines, now. _All except for Clark._

"Mmm," said Clark, and the sound of his voice alone just made Lex shudder in expectation and want. "I think that ought to do it, right?"

"Yy-yes," Lex said, still shivering; he hadn't yet stopped. And he hoped he wasn't going to; it felt so good. "Yes, yes, yes."

"So," Clark asked, settling down lower on his knees over him, closer -- just a little closer, he was almost touching him! -- "Are you ready for some... fun?"

"Yes, oh yes," Lex said, straining forward, not just on-instinct anymore, but now out of a deep, deep, blood- and bone-deep desire for _Clark_ from his own completely-voluntary will. Because he wanted this. _So much._

" _Anything_ you want, yes," Lex begged him. Because he would. Do _anything_. Because Clark was **everything**. "--Please!"

Clark smiled.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To read the explicit section, [click here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5161313/); otherwise, please skip-hop forward like a cute little fluffy bunny and assume there was lots and lots of petting going on all night long -- yes, petting, which Lex might have enjoyed a little too much, thank you for asking -- while you continue reading further down :)


	4. The end of the second shortfic

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex blinked awake slowly, languidly, face down, with a light sheet above and a mattress below, feeling completely and wholly used.

And also possibly melted into the bed, which was far more comfortable than any bed had any right being, goddammit, and why didn't he have one of these, anyway? He ought to be able to afford a bed like...

He raised his head up slightly.

...Clark's bed.

...

In Clark's loft.

...

Where they had just spent a significant portion of the night...

...

And then, in the shower...

...

Lex slowly lowered his head back to the mattress and came to the somewhat-disturbing realization that, whatever the source of the red-K tainted drug, _this_ time, at least, the human participant in the proceedings had been left with a perfectly clear memory of what had transpired over the duration of their exposure to it.

...Well, 'perfectly clear' for varying levels of however clearly he'd been able to think the night before, anyway.

Lex swallowed hard. And it didn't even hurt his throat. It barely ached.

Sometimes, he wasn't entirely sure whether his meteor-infected immune system and advanced healing were a good thing, or bad.

One thing he _was_ sure about, though -- he didn't want to move.

...But he also really didn't want to be here when Clark woke up, either. Because that could not possibly go well.

So he grimaced, and forced himself to move.

He got as far as turning himself over, back to the mattress, and then froze as he turned his head sideways and realized that Clark was _right_ next to him, lying on his stomach, head turned towards him.

_And Clark's eyes were completely open._

"Hi," said Clark, looking at him.

Lex swallowed. Hard. "Hi."

Clark shifted slightly, stretching in place, and his eyes slid closed as he did so. "Mm."

Lex waited for the inevitable.

Clark finished his morning stretch, and then slowly slitted his eyes back open.

"So," Clark said. "Wanna do that again?"

Lex stared at him for a moment blankly.

Clark got a slow, devil-may-care smile.

Though his eyes weren't red at all.

_Oh._

"...Yeah, okay," said Lex.

Then he had to blush and turn his head away, to look up at the ceiling.

"Could we, uh," Lex closed his eyes, "usetheRedKthough?" he managed to squeak out. Because, unfortunately, as unabashed as he was able to be around women, that side of him didn't exactly easily extend to how he felt around men.

...Not _yet_ , anyway. Assuming that...

He kept his eyes closed and listened to Clark breathe next to him. And shift in place.

"Sure," he heard Clark tell him, with a tinge of amusement in his voice. "I've got a whole box of the stuff still left to use up." A pause. "And more eggnog, too."

"Okay," said Lex.

"Okay," Clark said, and he heard the rustle of sheets and felt the shift and creak of the mattress next to him, as his alien friend slowly got up and out of the bed.

Lex slowly pulled the sheets up to his chin.

And then up over his head to hide the flush he got before ducking and rolling back over onto his side, because he could just about _hear_ Clark's teasing grin as he padded lightly away barefoot across the bedroom floor.

He could faintly see the traceries of light and shadow playing off the walls, peeking out from under the sheet. It took him a moment to place it as cast by the Christmas lights strung over Clark's very Charlie-Brown-looking plastic tree in the corner, and Lex wondered why Clark had chosen _that_ one, of all things, to decorate with. When Clark could have had anything he wanted.

And he faintly wondered, as he sat up and tried not to blush furiously again, as the sheet fell down to pool around his waist, and he took a cup of warmed and 'especially spiced' eggnog from Clark's outstretched hand, how exactly this had become one of his best Christmases ever.

 _Well, maybe the how doesn't matter so much as the why,_ he thought, as he took a small sip of eggnog.

The story of his life, really.

And quite the rush.

~*~*~*~*~*~

END


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